When we think of American culture in
the ’90s, we don’t often think of Ireland.
In fact, the origin of the most beloved
music from the ’90s is often traced back
to Seattle, Washington. Grunge pioneers
were born below the city’s rainy skies —
Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Nirvana — all
of whom went on to shape the ’90s with
their flannels and oversized jean jackets.
While these bands have made major
contributions to the music of the ’90s, the
sounds we attribute to ’90s alternative
music were largely influenced by Irish
groups producing music amid political
turmoil. Though these music groups
are often overlooked in the grunge and
alternative music narratives, they have
helped shape our understanding of ’90s
culture in major ways.
One of the most well-known and
influential groups from the Irish music
scene is The Cranberries, an Irish rock
band formed in Limerick, Ireland. The
group broke into American alternative
music with their hit single “Dreams,” an
eccentric, hopeful tune that introduced
the world to the band’s unique twist on
the Celtic rock tradition. Unlike other
bands of its time, The Cranberries fused
alternative music with their Irish roots,
marked by the bellows from lead singer
Dolores O’Riordan in her Irish brogue.
“Linger,” a dreamy haze of a song, also
topped the charts in the ’90s, again
featuring O’Riordan’s superior vocal trills
and accentuating the band’s nimble guitar
performance.
“Dreams” and “Linger” were pleasant
introductions to The Cranberries, but
the band later proved they were more
than just a bunch of twenty-somethings
chasing fame. In fact, their 1994 release of
“Zombie” shattered the band’s mellowness
and sparked much controversy in Ireland.
The song, a seething protest against
the
IRA
and
the
deaths of nearly two
thousand
civilians
(including
two
young boys), is set to
a raging, heavy drum
part as O’Riordan
almost pleads for the
violence to stop. Over
crunchy,
distorted
guitars,
O’Riordan
wails “what’s in your
head, zombie?” and
gets in touch with
her
raw
emotions
with
a
series
of
primal howls at the
end of the song.
Shortly following
the
release
of
“Zombie,” the band
set out to create a
music video, sending
director
Samuel
Bayer to Northern
Ireland to capture footage of the horrors
of The Troubles. Naturally, both the BBC
and the RTE rejected the video, opting to
broadcast an edited version that mainly
featured the band in a live performance.
Despite their efforts to keep the original
video out of view from the public, the
initial footage prevailed and was watched
more than 660 million times. On top of
that, just a few weeks after the release
of the song, the IRA declared a ceasefire
after nearly 25 years of conflict.
The
Cranberries
were
musical
revolutionaries, but their legacy spans
far and wide, embedded into the pop
culture
we
know
today.
We
laughed
when Andy yodeled his
rendition of “Zombie”
in “The Office” and
we hummed along to
“Dreams” as Meg Ryan
babbled about online
romance
in
“You’ve
Got Mail.”
My mom introduced
me to the band when
I was young, telling
me
stories
of
her
beloved patent leather
Dr. Martens and how
Dolores
O’Riordan
inspired the women of
her time to embrace
their individuality and
showed
that
women
can do grunge just as
well as men. Today,
The Cranberries still
make appearances in
my playlists, and I’m taken by surprise
every time I hear the roar of O’Riordan
as she lays bare her edgy but open heart.
The Cranberries have crossed oceans
and reached audiences around the world
with their radical spirit, and through
their courage they’ve added an element
of rebellion to the ’90s era, the kind that
sparks change and inspires generations to
come.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
b-side
Thursday, February 27, 2020 — 4B
On this day in 1996, the very first
pair of Pokémon games was released,
kicking off what is now one of the most
iconic video game franchises. The series
was an essential part of my childhood. I
remember being in the third grade and
pestering my parents for weeks to buy
me a copy of Pokémon Diamond because
all my friends had it. There are few
moments in my life that match the sheer
excitement of starting the game for the
first time, watching my mute, 8-bit avatar
wake up and knowing that just outside
his little bedroom, a world of adventure
and endless possibility awaited.
In that moment, I was at a new
beginning. I felt this despite knowing
that the game I was playing was just one
iteration of a series older than myself.
Though I’ve played most of the games
since then, I never experienced the place
where it all started, the foundation upon
which an integral part of my childhood
was built: Pokémon Red and Blue. Two
weeks ago I decided to change that. I
fired up a Game Boy emulator on my
laptop, downloaded a copy of Pokémon
Red from a shady website and began my
Pokémon journey one more time.
The rattle of a drumline punctuated
by the immediately recognizable first
notes of a trumpet that played over the
opening cutscene sounded different in
my mind than they did in real life. The
tiny speakers on a Game Boy could not
be expected to perfectly reproduce the
sounds of these instruments, yet there is
no way to listen to the music on the title
screen and not hear a live marching band
ready to follow you every step of the way.
In that opening, there’s both a reserved
humility and an understated promise
of more to come — a promise Professor
Oak confirms as he welcomes you to the
world of Pokémon.
I picked Charmander as my starter,
turned my back to Pallet Town and
embarked on my journey through Kanto.
Knowing what the game could look
like with today’s advanced graphics
didn’t makewalking through Viridian
Forest any less daunting or battling
monochromatic sprites any less exciting.
I was ready to immerse myself in such
dated graphics despite being able to
turn on my Nintendo Switch and play
an almost photo-realistic version of
essentially the same game. I battled
through all eight gym leaders, and, after
some hard work, reached the Champion,
my life-long rival, Blue. A subdued
version of the opening music played
as I waited to begin the final battle, a
reminder of where it all began.
Why am I able to feel such intense
nostalgia for a game that I never played?
Part of it may just be my nostalgia for the
Pokémon series itself, but I think there’s
more to it. There’s something special
about playing an old game like Pokémon
Red or Blue. Though the technology
available by the time I started playing
video games had theoretically rendered
the 8-bit aesthetic obsolete, that same
aesthetic became the basis for hundreds
of contemporary games. Stardew Valley,
Terraria, Undertale and the like all play
on our shared nostalgia for the 8-bit role-
play game. The same aesthetic that was a
limitation for the developers of Pokémon
Red and Blue is now a worthwhile style
in its own right. 8-bit games persisted
and remained competitive with AAA
titles whose scenes looked like they came
out of a film. While one might be in awe
at a screenshot from a cinematic moment
in Grand Theft Auto V, no image from
Pokémon Red and Blue in isolation will
produce such an emotional response.
Yet somehow countless people still feel
a genuine sense of triumph when they
finally get to wipe the smug look off
their rival’s face as they claim the title
of Champion.
Games like Pokémon do so much with
so little. A pixelated dark splotch may
look nothing like a tree, but let yourself
think it does and see how easily you’ll
be lost in a forest of them. Pikachu’s
thunderbolt may just be a flashing
screen, but when it deals the final blow
in a tightly contested battle, it feels
explosive. It’s our imaginations that
elevate these scenes to where we feel
they are. The ’90s have thus produced,
perhaps by accident, an ethos around
video games that allows for an unlimited
potential
for
emotional
investment.
Pokémon and its modern counterparts
offer us the permission to imagine.
A look back at the ’90s in gaming
B-SIDE: MUSIC
The Cranberries as the ’90s heroes
DAILY STYLE COLUMN
Pierre et Gilles’ Le Diable
(Marc Almond) is one of the
most piercing in their vast
collection
of
homoerotic
surrealist
photographs.
The
landscape-style image portrays
a
conversation
between
two
poles — to the
left,
a
cherub
cut out of marble
looks down from
his perch. His hair
is fine and tousled
as
he
reclines
against the bed of
heterochromatic
flowers separating
him and the devil
to his right. His
gaze flirts with
his
seemingly
forbidden
compatriot as he
holds his finger up
to his mouth in a
shushing motion.
A
glib
smirk,
barely noticeable,
sets the tone for
the scene — these
two
know
each
other
well,
but
they ought not to.
The
devil
is
separated
from
the cherub by the
suspended sea of
blooms, filled with
what
appear
to
be sprigs of sage
and bouquets of
peonies,
which
respectively
signify protection,
romance and death. He splays
his
outstretched
fingers,
extended by a set of black
acrylics, across opposite sides
of his chest, effectively covering
what would be his modesty. The
nails’ shape offset his razor-
sharp eyebrows and his quiffed,
seemingly lacquered on hair
(complete with a widow’s peak
and the most cartoonish pair of
sideburns one could possibly lay
eyes on), while their brilliant
sheen parallel his glossy red
horns and the sparse smattering
of emotionless tears. His gaze
accepts that of the cherub, but
he is not the aggressor in this
scene. Rather, the work taps into
and subverts the longstanding
queer-coding of villains in art
and popular culture.
What’s implicit in Le Diable is
a veiled, theism-tinged reference
to both the dichotomy between
the presumptive homosociality
and homorotecism portrayed
in
modern
culture
and
devalued forms of identitarian
queerness, as well as the forms
of desire that cannot be bound
by
those
same
identitarian
lines, regardless of how many
digitized plants are placed in
between them. The Cherub, on
the whole, encompasses all that
comes with a privileged station.
His
colorless,
marble-esque
appearance harkens the kinds
of saintly and angelic figures
commissioned by those affiliated
with the Papacy during the
Renaissance. Though cherubs
maintain
their
child-like
appearance throughout their
existence, this is not to suggest
that they are perpetually young
or that they are truly innocent
or unknowing creatures, but
rather that they maintain the
illusion of an untainted youth
due to their position within the
celestial hierarchy. The effect
of choosing the
Cherub in this
work to be the
aggressor is not
in the service
of
furthering
notions
of
infantilization,
a
cultural
practice
that
has the power
to
advance
pederastic
stereotypes
that
have
been
hurled
against the gay
community
for as long as
it
has
been
established
as
a
politicized
category,
but
rather
in
reifying
the
power
dynamic of this
exchange.
The
cherub
not only enjoys
the
power
afforded
to
him
by
his
association with
a power much
stronger
than
that of the (C.S.
Lewis
coined)
lowerarchy,
he maintains his superficial
air of innocence as well. He is
free to gaze and engage as he
pleases, while those who share
his likeness would be none the
wiser. He is placed in a literal
position of power as well, he is
placed higher than the devil,
and the casual, confident nature
of both his body language and
his expression is a confirmation
of his agency. The devil in this
image accepts not only the
gaze of his aggressor, but his
devalued status as well. He
flirts back, but in such a way
that shows a sense of meekness
we would not expect from the
agent of all evil. Despite his
extreme features, he covers
himself and lowers his chin, so
as to appear more demure. The
juxtaposition of the signifiers of
his namesake and his outwardly
demure, and subversively queer-
coded appearance. He is not
what he seems, and neither is
the Cherub. This landscape
entails a symbolic attraction,
not between youth and maturity,
but in between those that
enjoy the privilege of purity, of
normativeness and those that
must wear their sin on their
sleeve. Through careful use of
divine imagery, Pierre et Gilles
create a language of attraction,
even of love, that can be spoken
between
those
who
have
barriers placed before them,
while acknowledging dynamics
of power that cannot be done
away with in a flawed world.
Velveteen Dream:
Heaven & Hell 2
SAM KREMKE
Daily Style Columnist
B-SIDE: DIGITAL CULTURE
SEJJAD ALKHALBY
Daily Arts Writer
KAITLYN FOX
Daily Arts Writer
There is no way to listen
to the music on the title
screen and not hear a live
marching band ready to
follow you every step of
the way
What’s implicit
in Le Diable
is a veiled,
theism-tinged
reference to both
the dichotomy
between the
presumptive
homosociality
and
homorotecism
portrayed
in modern
culture and
devalued forms
of identitarian
queerness
PIERRE ET GILLES
ISLAND
Dolores O’Riordan
inspired the women of
her time to embrace
individuality, showing
that women can do
grunge just as well as
men can
We laughed when Andy
yodeled his rendition of
“Zombie” in “The Office”
and hummed along to
“Dreams” as Meg Ryan
babbled about online
romance in “You’ve Got
Mail.”